Crossing Ghosts
by Erinunu
Summary: I've decided to write a story using my favorite prompt (Write a romance story about two people living in abutting apartments(in this case next door neighbors, but it's essentially the same thing) that are madly in love with each other, but never actually met each other face-to-face-How is it that they know eachother so well, yet have never seen the others face?


**I've decided to make a story for my favorite prompt(though I've never tried making a story out of it before):Write a romance story about two people living in abutting apartments(in this case next door neighbors, but it's essentially the same thing) that are madly in love with each other, but never actually met each other face-to-face.**

**I thought it'd be perfect for an Animal Crossing story, I'm sure you can understand why.**

**This also based in a town I have in my current re-play through of the original Animal Crossing, as one of the main characters is also based as my character in-game.**

**Flames and constructive criticism are accepted.**

**Anyway, I've bored you enough. Enjoy! **

She slowly opened her eyes as the sun light behind the curtained windows shone through. Shifting out of her bed, she began to do her morning stretches.

This was something new to her, getting up at the slightest moment of consciousness as opposed to lying in bed for 10 minutes before even thinking about moving. To then immediately begin to become active, stretching out every single tendon and muscle that had previously been asleep just a minute before opposed to lumbering around, glaring at anyone who dared to speak to her before half of her cup of coffee had been drunk.

But this was how Sony's life went about now; as if she didn't do these stretches she would certainly regret it later after running the equivalent of about 10 miles; A lesson that she had learned the hard and painful way. She had a certain shop keeping raccoon thank for that.

Let's start from the beginning. After 20 years of living in the same condo, Sony finally decided to pack up and go live on her own. With nothing but the clothes on her back and a satchel with 100 bells inside she picked a random animal village and was off.

Most of the intelligent animal population live in these small villages that consisted of 9-13 people at the most that were scattered everywhere, whilst the humans prefer large cities with skyscrapers; where any building that wasn't 3 stories high was considered a waste of space in public eye.

But for a few more years off of a decade, the younger generation (i.e. young adults) have been travelling and making their homes in these villages. Many of Sony's siblings included.

Deciding to follow in their footsteps after hearing of their adventures through mostly letters, an odd phone call, and the rare occasions where they could come and visit for the holidays. They gave tips and advice before she left, telling of the probability that she'd meet a member of the Nook group, a family of similarly named raccoons, and the Able Sister's Franchise which were like the Nook group but a tailor instead of a general shop.

She'd settled on a town called Meladine (Mel-la-dine). After working for the resident Nook part-time to cut down some of her new home loan, doing a multitude of favors and fetch-quests for her fellow villages, fishing up every fish she could and giving the paleontologists at Faraway Museum a good reason to file for overtime (it was early January so there wasn't a bug to be seen. Besides bees of coarse.); Here she was 4 months later, waking up at 10:30, and leaving to start her day 11:30 on the dot.

The clock on her wall kindly informed her that she had gotten up a bit late today, but that was fine. Sony wasn't on any kind of schedule despite her punctuality.

She left an hour after doing her stretches, getting her mail, tossing the junk and keeping the newly identified fossils that she mailed last week along with a cherry from Bob the purple cat in return for the stationary she had given him yesterday.

She needed more of that, she reminded herself, she gave him her last pack of the letter material. She went about her morning, thanking Bob for his present and scribbled down the odd job he asked of her in her notebook to remind herself later when she found herself nothing to do.

She remembered her lack of stationary when she went to the post office to mail off today's fossils. It wasn't a problem a quick sprint to Nook's couldn't fix. Arriving at her destination, she attempted to open the wooden door to find it locked. She cocked an eyebrow and tried again the make sure the door wasn't just stuck to no avail.

Despite it being light outside, meaning Nook's would defiantly be open, she check her Crossing watch. The Crossing watch is the other item that she'd brought with her. It not only told the time and date, it also told her the names of the bugs and fishes she caught and the gyroids that she dug up and would normally say a pre-recorded pun for the former two.

Hers was a hand-me-down from her eldest sister on one of her sparse visits to their home city. Switching to the watch function, it read 12:23 pm.

Confused, she turned to walk back to her house to make sure she didn't have a spare pack of stationary that she'd merely forgotten about, only to see Nook running her way. "Sorry! I was selling a house to a newbie in town! So sorry!" He sputtered. "It's fine" she muttered as he unlocked the tiny store. "So what'cha need?" he asked, opening the door. "A couple packs of today's stationary" came her response.

Nodding, Tom walked over to a box below the stationary display, where the actual stationary was kept. "Who's the new animal that you were moving in?" she asked.

"Not an animal this time" Tom said to her surprise "A human like you, he's actually going to be living in the house across from yours" "The one with the orange roof?"She asked, excited "Yea" he confirmed "He's a bit of quiet one, shy too." The shop-keep added. "Is he gonna be working for you for a bit like I did?" Sony asked "Yep, why is it that you humans never just call or something. Ask the price of a house, if one is even available." He thought aloud. She was used to those kinds of questions and comments by now.

"We get so caught up in the prospect of adventure we don't think straight, I guess" she said, handing Tom the appropriate amount of bells as he handed her the stationary. Today's had a floral pattern, she noted.

"You could stick around and say Hi to him if you want. Make his first errand of meeting everyone easier." Tom said as Sony reached for the door "It's ok, and don't bother having him meet me. I'm going to be running around trying to find fish to catch for the next few hours. Besides, we're next door neighbors; we're bound to meet eventually." She assured. "All right" Tom responded "If that's what you want."

Leaving the shop with a wave and a goodbye, she started to walk back to the post office. When she was about to cross the river, she spotted Hambo-a dark orange pig with a white headband- running towards her left. Turning to face him, he stopped in front of her. "Hey!" he said anxiously. "What's up?" Sony asked "I need you to bury this present somewhere" He said, shoving the usual white box with a red ribbon that tied into a bow on the top. "Why?" She asked, taking the box gingerly. Frantic, Hambo looked around, searching for something.

His eyes settled for a moment on something somewhere a bit upstream, but as she began to turn to look, he grabbed her shoulders and leaned in with his forehead an inch and a half away from hers. "Um…Hambo?" She said, now officially nervous. "It's a birthday present for Truffles! But you know how she is! Always letting herself in everyone's houses, without their knowledge…" He whisper shouted.

A wave of relief hit her. He really freaked her out for a moment there. "I've been afraid to leave my house! Could you please go bury this somewhere no one will dig it up?" He asked.

As she was about to respond, she heard someone running accompanied by the all-too-familiar sound of a hoard of bee's and before she could react, she felt something jab her painfully square in the middle of her back, effectively winding her and causing her to be thrown forwards.

She conked heads and noses with Hambo, making the both of them fall into the river. For a few moments all she saw was the pig's chest and bubbles at the side of her vision as the current dragged them.

Hambo's arm around her shoulders, she swum up to the surface. Both of them gasped as they broke the water surface. Hambo coughed out a "w-What in the world was that?!"

Sinking below mouth height for a moment before Sony sputtered out "I don't know!" then coughed out some water that she had inhaled. Sony noticed that they were still being dragged by the current of the stream, and she knew where that headed. Hambo seem to realize that they were in trouble the same moment that she did, and began to kick his legs along with hers in an attempt to get to shore.

After a moment of frantic kicking and leaning, she looked ahead to see where the river drop into a waterfall and began to start kicking harder against the current.

Suddenly a fishing pole shot out of side they had been standing on, giving the both of them to hold onto. One hand and one hoof grab the of the fishing, their other arm occupied with holding on to each other, so the other wouldn't get washed away.

The ones responsible had been Cookie-a pink and white dog with floppy ears- and Chief-a light brown wolf-, Hambo's neighbors.

Cookie was holding the handle of the pole while Chief held hold with one paw above the first loop of the pole and one paw below. The sound of rushing water had been all she-most likely both of them, but then again her ear's weren't on the top of her head- had been able to hear since they had been pushed into the river. Now, she could faintly hear the sound of the two canines yelling and grunting as they tried to pull us out. Since when was the river's current _this_ strong anyway?!

Sony and Hambo kicked to help with effort. And help it did, but the current kept pulling them closer to the waterfall, along with their would-be rescuers. Sony was feared that they too would be pulled in, seeing how Chief's left leg was dangerously close to the river's edge.

Sony realized what Cookie and Chief must've been yelling as she saw Olive-a grey bear with small, cute eyes- running towards them, with Yuka-a very snooty dray grey koala- and Bob following closely behind. One of them ether had been across the river and the two canines yelled at them to go get help or one of them had been within yelling distance, mostly likely Olive since she was closest.

She heard Chief-no pun intended- bark something at Yuka, knowing full well she wasn't one for physical exertion, and she intern nodded and ran off as the others latched on the fishing pole and began to pull as well.

With four people instead of two, Sony and Hambo were pulled out of the river to shore. Sony hadn't realized how much water she'd inhaled as she began to cough furiously as her lungs tried to replace the water in them with air, and from what she could hear her pig pal was having the same problem.

"You guys ok?!" came Cookie's voice. "Not-" Sony coughed up some more water into the grass "Not really" she managed, panting. "C-could b-b-be wo-worse" panted Hambo, rolling to his back. Sonny remained face-down in the snowy grass, eyes closed. She looked to the side when she heard six more pairs of footsteps rushing towards them, to see Pelly holding a first-aid-kit, the Police Dogs-_what were their names again?_-, Truffles-the pink pig with a tuft of auburn hair that Hambo what to hide his birthday present to her from-, Cleo-a purple horse with a blonde mane-, and Yuka leading them.

_So that where she went_ Sony thought. The 10 minutes were a blur of questions, thanks, and first-aid administer by Pelly. Next thing Sony knew she was being lead home Bob, going through her door, and plopping on her bed.

With her head in her crossed arms, she thought about what happened. She faintly remembered Pelly-the only one in town who knew proper first-aid- telling someone that Sony and Hambo were to go home and rest, since they had been half-drowned in the river. Most likely Bob and Chief since Bob had been the one to take her home and Chief was Hambo's next-door neighbor.

Sony reached behind her to grab her satchel, since she found it most reliable to wear it backpack style. Using her elbows to prop herself up she dug through the satchel, looking for the stationary that she'd bought just before get knocked into the river with Hambo.

All her fossils, newly dug up and the ones she received back today, were still there in their shrunken down states and her stationary was still intact. She breathed a sigh of relief, some water did get inside the main pouch but not in any of the others, including the one where she kept her stationary.

Pulling the a few pieces of the floral paper out along a pen she kept in that pouch as well, she wrote four short letters to Faraway Museum and packed and paired them with her newly dug fossils. Stuffing the packages in her bag, she toke two other pieces of stationary and wrote a return letter to Truffles-they were essentially pen pals due to the pigs love of writing and getting letters was stronger than the rest of the villager, which is _seriously_ saying something- and her condolences to Hambo and his birthday present to Truffles, of which had been obviously lost in the River Conundrum as Sony was now calling it, hoping to raise her friend sprits by making a lite-hearted joke about not fishing in the river for awhile.

Finished with her work, she put the letter in her satchel-she needed to stop calling it that-, turning off the lights and closed her eyes. Snuggling beneath the covers, she wondered what had sent her and pig friend flying into that river in the first place.

Clearly it was someone running away from bees, but why so feverishly? She knew bee stings hurt but _still_. Whoever it was for whatever reason, Sony was still going to give them a piece of her mind, and if they didn't have a good reason shove two people into a river and not try and help out immediately then mostly likely a foot in the ass.

Sony huffed, she'd know tomorrow. The Police Dogs were most likely sniffing out the culprit as we speak. Sonny felt sleep start to take over as that thought came to mind, finally succumbing to it only a moment later.

**There you have it, some 2,670 something words including the intro and this outro. This is the most I've ever written in one project in my entire life. **

**Also, having a character named Sony in a Nintendo game *ba-tum-tish***

**Her name isn't Madison or Sony in my game however. That not important though.**

**We'll meet the other main character in the next chapter and from then on we'll be in the POV's on the main characters since that's much easier for me to write.**

**Seriously, I can't even tell you guys how many times I typed 'I' instead of 'her'. The answer is far too many. **

**And don't worry, we will get to the romance soon enough.**

**Anyway, see you next chapter! Bye-beee! **


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